What would you guys recommend for someone who played Majesty 1 and the Northern expansion to death back when it was new - get the new HD version or go straight for Maj2? It's been so long that I feel like Maj1 would keep me busy for a while, and I hear that Maj2 isn't that great, so I'm leaning towards getting HD first, but the screenshots of Maj2 do look nice...

IMO the main complaint people have about Majesty 2 is the default balance is pretty bad and one or two of the early campaign levels are too hard (way too hard), but you can fix that with mods and I think it's just as good as the first one after you fix it some. Majesty HD does not support mods so you lose out on being able to edit the game which I think is a pretty significant difference

I don't really have interest in mods so that's not a big factor for me. I tend to stick with whatever is created by the game designer, not user content. But if the balance in Maj2 is off, I'll probably go for the first Majesty in HD first.

Having played both Majesty 2 and Majesty, I would suggest sticking with Majesty.

Although Majesty 2 has incorporated several new features, it is lacking in others that makes it a poor sequel, and an extremely difficult game to play without modding the game.

Majesty 2 PROS:
-> New Party System. Build a LV 2 Inn, and you can form parties where up to 4 heroes will work cooperatively together to achieve tasks.
-> Two new reward flags. Protect and Flee. Protect entices characters to defend a building, or a hero. Flee tells heroes to leave an area, and they get paid when they do.
-> Graveyard Resurrection. When a character dies, it goes into a graveyard. Unlike Majesty however, you can resurrect any hero from the graveyard... though it is quite costly do so.
-> New standard class: The Cleric, which heals allies, and does ranged damage.
-> Hero Abilities: Each hero has it own set of abilities now. For example the Warrior has the Taunt Ability that forces enemies to focus on the warrior.
-> Lords. In the campaign you can keep your highest level hero at the end of a mission and carry it over to the next mission. Unfortunately, the cost to hire the Lord is insanely expensive, so that it makes this a good thing, but not at the start of the game when you would need the Lord the most.

Majesty 2 CONS:
-> Hero AI is lacking. In Majesty 1, heroes would do certain things dependent on their class. Warriors would hunt down monsters and monster lairs, Rangers would explore, and other classes would do other things. In Majesty 2, no one will attack monster lairs unless it has a reward flag on it. No one will explore the map unless there is a reward flag placed for it.
-> Flag Dependancy. The game is centered around the reward flag system. If you do not put up flags, your heroes will do practically nothing. Which means you have to have a large and steady supply of gold to make it happen.
-> Gold Production. It is much harder to get gold in Majesty 2. The marketplace in general produces far less gold, and caravan arriving provide less gold. Additionally, there is no royal gardens anymore, or fairgrounds and the Inns do not produce gold. Coupled with the Flag Dependancy makes the game tough as nails.
-> Hero Stupidity. In Majesty 1, heroes would have different personalities and would do different tasks at particular times. In Majesty 2, roles appear to be reversed, at least from what I've seen. In Majesty 1, Wizards were cowards, and Warriors were courageous. In Majesty 2, Wizards are courageous, and Warriors are cowards. Not a good combo. Wizards are still as squishy.
-> Hero Mortality Rate. Due to not having any fairgrounds, most heroes do not ever reach a very high level before dying at least once. As the cost to revive them increases as they level from a graveyard, it is hard to keep a group of highlevel characters around. Replacing heroes isn't usually an option either as you do not get a ton of gold to work with. Wizards die the most often, and are not cheap to hire. They do end up being powerhouses by about LV 10, but to get a wizard to that level is extremely hard.
-> Fixed Temple and Trading Post Locations. You can no longer build temples and trading posts whereever there is room. Now you can build a very limited number of them and only in places where there is an icon allowing it. Defending such locations is generally a royal pain.
-> No randomization options. No skirmish play. Oh and no, Continue Playing option.
-> No direct control. I am listing this as a CON even though it would be a PRO for Majesty 1. Since the heroes are so mindlessly stupid, having no direct control over them is infuriating, as they will not do anything for you unless you hold their hand by using reward flags.

All-in-all, despite it adding a few things, it took away far more, turning Majesty 2 into more of a broken RTS than a Simulation Game that Majesty 1 was.

I'd review the game as a 6.0/10.0; Its a decent game, just not a Majesty sequel. It doesn't really capture the feel of the previous game.

I just got Majesty 2 Complete Collection for a steal ($4.99) and have been enjoying it. There are some balance issues...it took me 10 hours to beat the Royal Feat campaign mission, but it's still a good game. I don't mod games either so it was frustrating to be stuck on an early mission for so long, but I don't have many other complaints so far.
I had the first one as well and am thinking of buying the HD version. It would be great to hear, " Your highness! We have improved the guardhouse!" again They changed it in the new one to guardtower, but whatever :P
I think it's very cool that this classic game is still being supported.

That's a very thorough analysis palidinsalim- Well done! I would just like to take a moment to respond to some of your comment from the perspective of having modded Majesty 2.

To start with, after tinkering with the game I found the gold issue not to be one of income (in fact I would say there is TOO MUCH gold income in the game), but it really comes down to 2 buildings: the blacksmith and the magic bazaar. The blacksmith is extraordinarily overpriced, without mods I would never recommend upgrading it past Tier 1 under any circumstance. Almost all of the maps in the game are easier to beat without constructing a blacksmith because it is just too much of a drain on the economy (making it a prime target for fixing in mods). The other issue is the Magic Bazaar, whose primary function is to increase your gold income (it is actually the second highest gold producing structure in the kingdom). This is contrary to how I thought the building was supposed to be used, so after I saw the numbers I changed my strategy to match how the building was actually implemented in the game (as a gold maker) instead of how I thought it was supposed to work (as a potion maker).

Almost all the rest of your cons I think are related to the party system. Hero AI, Flag Dependency, Hero Stupidity, and Hero Mortality are all side effects of the party system.

Before I learned how parties work from a strategic perspective I rather agreed with your analysis. But as I learned how to use parties more effectively (and also earlier in the map) those issues no longer applied. Parties are not just another optional thing in the game, they are the core element of offensive play. Heroes in a party work together and do not exhibit the same weaknesses you mentioned while in parties. I could write a whole post on how to use parties effectively and how much they change the game, but that is not the point here, the point is simply to state the issues to the game that you enumerated are mostly fixed by playing the game differently, not fundamental issues inherent to the Majesty 2.

Ah but in Majesty 1, heroes grouped up into groups without you having to force the issue. My biggest beef with the party system is the fact that if the leader dies, the whole group does diddly squat until you revive em, or you disband the party. Also the fact that the party would only respond to flags that the party leader would normally go for.

Yes, in Majesty 1 parties were self forming. Having the King(player) form the parties was rather missing the point of the game, which is trying to get stereotypical old-school D&D PCs to save the day for you when you have no actual control over them.

majesty 1 is basically a light simulator and majesty 2 is more of a strategy game with indirect control.

i personally like the 2nd game more.

What on earth is a light simulator?

Anyhow OP, Majesty 2 is a very watered down version of Majesty. I recommend 2 because it will be new for you and it is fun in its own childish way.

But remember mechanics like being able to toggle which buildings your tax collector visits and which ones he ignores? Or what his minimum collection and return loads are? Yeah, forget that mechanic and about 90% of the others from the original.

Oh and the new couple of new features are rubbish. If my level 1 wizards did not accept reward flags on dragons then I would not need the stupid fear flag (the new AI is horrible).

And to create a party you have to make all your heroes gather at the inn and furiously try to click on the ones you want as they enter and leave. meanwhile your town is usually being destroyed by monsters. Why can't my heroes make their own parties, you know, as if they have personalities? If I wanted to directly control my units I would play Starcraft 2.

Others summed it up well. Majesty HD is the better game still IMO. Just due to random map mode. And the heroes having actual AI personalities. It lived up to the name "fantasy kingdom sim".

Majesty 2 is recommended if you want more of a difficult RTS game. Each level is like a puzzle where you must do exactly the correct thing or lose. And you have more control over what heroes do so it's more RTS.

its not a puzzle, if you handle strategically correct, you will win. NYou dont need to know whats coming.

Well I disagree. There are many levels where it suddenly sends almost impossible to beat waves at your city. And you had to know what was coming to know how to stop it. Or that you needed to clear the lairs before that day. In such cases it's often just plain trial an error. Figuring out what works. Like a puzzle.